


day 2: hero/villain

by ladybuginettes (stylostique)



Series: marinette week 2018 [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-06-08 22:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylostique/pseuds/ladybuginettes
Summary: pretty lairs don't make pretty intentions. and pretty monologues don't make pretty victories.





	day 2: hero/villain

If the situation were different, Ladybug would have admired Paon’s decor. Gabriel Agreste, despite his fashion empire, had a fairly boring lair, entirely monochromatic and dark. Paon’s lair was the opposite. True to the peacock name, her lair was iridescent, with large, stained-glass windows acting as two way mirrors, a smooth flat reflective surface on the outside, but shattering the light in the room into millions of colors which danced on her suit.

Ladybug would have admired the decor, if it weren’t for two simple facts: that the dancing lights were being tracked by lasers ready to fire, and that Chat Noir was suspended in a gold netted cage, ring beeping more insistently by the second. 

Paon walked up to Ladybug, smiling a deceptively sweet smile, raising her hand as if to caress her chin. Never let it be said that Ladybug did not learn from her instincts and past mistakes, as she was far too villain-savvy at this point to ever allow anyone she suspected even slightly within a five foot radius of her earrings – and Paon was the scariest and most suspicious person on the planet. She readied her yoyo and fist, bracing herself to backflip off Paon’s face and hope that the glass of her lair wasn’t shatterproof. And then one little sentence stopped her in her tracks.

“Dearest, _luckiest,_ Marinette,” Paon said, with a voice far too soothing to belong to someone so cruel. It was only through years of practice that Ladybug kept her face mostly impassive, although she couldn’t stop her jaw from clenching just the slightest bit, and the widening grin on Paon’s face said all too clearly that she had noticed the involuntary twitch. From the corner of her eye, she saw her poor partner’s eyes widen and jaw drop as a flash of green light crept up his ankles, but she couldn’t focus on that now. She had one goal and one goal only – defeat Paon.

“You and I are quite alike, you know? Gabriel may have tormented Paris, but with such a narrow goal. And Adrien—” Marinette couldn’t keep herself from recoiling in shock and fear at this name drop, her eyes darting to her unmasked partner, meeting those same gentle green eyes she once thought she knew, now filled with pain and fear that twisted her insides, “—may fight alongside you, but I’m sure that if he knew what his father was trying, he would have sacrificed his ring in a heartbeat.” Marinette forced herself to concentrate on Paon but she couldn’t help registering Adrien’s frantic shaking of his head and the tears running down his face, and maybe it was a good thing, because the small, terrified reassurance from the partner she trusted with her life was enough to make the numbing panic began to subside, letting her analytical mind kick into gear.

“Marinette, you and I want the world in the palm of our hands.”

Wanting a fashion empire was not the same as wanting to control the entire planet, but Marinette decided that pretending to agree with Paon’s mandatory villain monologue was worth the extra stalling time it gave her to get the upper hand.

“Gabriel’s dreams were remarkably unambitious, but when we combine the four miraculouses we have now, we’ll be unstoppable, and when we find that pesky Guardian and the other three… well, there’s a reason that seven is a magical number across cultures. Say the word, Marinette, and you and I can rule the world!”

Ladybug smiled.

“I accept you—” ignoring poor Chat Noir’s anguished yell, she plowed forward with her words and her hands, snatching the brooch off Paon’s chest—

“Duusu!”

  
  



End file.
